in all the hustle on the farm getting ready for baby and the surprise of new lambs i totally forgot to introduce the newest member of our clan… earl gray the ram.
since the departure of our beloved ram stan (the sheep that got all our ewes pregnant and then died) we have been shopping around for a new breeding partner and stepdad for our lambs. i’m part of this amazing facebook group for icelandic sheep owners (there is a fb group for everything!) and i posted our situation on there. another side note this group is amazing. if you have any question, thought, found a weird weed growing in your pasture there are so many people in this group who have years of experience or are vets that chime in and help solve your problem and hopefully prevent a vet visit.
we posted on there that we were looking for a ram and a lovely lady responded that they had one ready to go. friends, this is an absolutely beautiful ram. look at his horns! she even delivered him for me. true story i’m always late and was rushing back from the bee supply store and she and her children were waiting for me in my front yard with earl on a dog leash. this is a woman after my own heart. i as well transfer sheep via vehicle rather than trailer. her children helped corral him down to the small pasture where we’ve kept him for a few weeks to get acclimated on the other side of the fence with the ewes.
soon we will be moving the young lambs out into the small pasture along with farley the whether and let earl gray breed again with babs, betty and bebe.
our first lambing season was a bit of a roller coaster. we went from having a perfect lamb with booboo and bebe to having a little trouble with babs and the twins stu and stan (soon to be joining grace at white cottage farm) and then the odd, weird, april the giraffe like birth with betty and the triplets. we ended up having our first rejected lamb and had to bottle feed her for a few weeks before sending her off to liz and jose’s farm to continue to grow. we have one little ewe and one little ram left from betty. we are debating if we are going to keep a second ram with betty because he is so beautiful or if we are going to whether him too and keep him for ornamental purposes.
it will be exciting next spring to see what kind of lambs earl gray produces. hopefully him and betty get along a little better (and faster) than betty and stan…
